7 JAN Golden Gate N.P. to Pilaneberg N. P.

This trip would cover approxi 500 KM and would take us thru the rest of the Free State, Gauteng province and into the most northern state of Limpopo, which borders on Zimbabwe. The first 2 hours was thru the Free state and this is obviously part of the "Food Basket" for ZA. The corn fields never seem to quite and there were many filds of beans and peas. Every small town we passed thru had 10 or 12 silo elevators so thet speaks for itself. We also seen some potato field for the fisrt time and i notice that there was not irrigartion so I assume they get enough rains as the crops looked great. Then we got on N3 which is a Toll highway so the speed change to 120 KMH but I noticed that most of the drivers , skipped their reading class because i was doing 120 and they flew by me. I was stopped once by the police but I think he was doing a commerical vehicle check and he thought I was a bus. He just checked my licence.
As we continued north we seen many more cattle than cash crops and about half were dairy herds. The dairy cattle are mostly Gursey.
As mentioned we were on N3 heading for N1 and then to N4 this all seemed fairly simple. After an hour or so I figure we should be nearing N4 until carroll says you are heading SE not North as we thought we were. Needless to say the maps are not good but we also ingnored the GPS, which we should not have done. by now I'm a little peeved so i whip into a gas station to ask directions. I ask the clerk who was black to direct me to the town on Britz. She said ask the gas attendant. I ask the gas attendant who was black and he said , " I'm not working today ".i said I don't give shit if you are working or not : just tell me how to get to Britz. So he notice by Fowl dispostion and called to buddy who was pumping petrol for a White lady. I too noticed the white lady so i went directly to her and she said turn left on 512 and don't get off it for 40 KM and you will be in Britz. Thank you white lady. We did got thru several small towns but we finally arrived at our destination . This would be our last chance to see the Big Five because when we leave here on tuesday our "Elephant" hunting is done. the park is beautiful and the camp site is great and the bonus is that most of the people will leave sunday morning as the kids start the new school year on Wedesday and the parents summer holidays are over. while signing in we noticed that the park hotel, chalets is affiliated with RCI time share. Anyhow we parked at our camp site, and since it was around 3:30 it must be "Miller Time" . The temp was 33C so we took a dip in the pool to cool off. Then back to the camp site for a "Braai" ( Bar-B- Q ) of lamb chop.